25/11/2025
“I learned that I can go to Sony and ask for a favour,” Claudio Miranda ASC ACC says with a grin.
For Top Gun: Maverick, Sony built the Rialto extension system for the VENICE, allowing the camera body to be separated from the sensor block and mounted in tight spaces. For F1, director Joseph Kosinski, DP Miranda, and 1st AC Dan Ming worked with Sony to create a prototype camera capable of capturing the custom-built F1 cars from within the cockpit, and which the DP describes as “a sensor on a stick”.
The cameras needed to be as small and light as possible while delivering high-quality, full frame 4K images, dynamic range, and offering shallow depth of field. Multiple cameras would have to be on the move, controlled simultaneously by radio frequency without losing connection as they sped around the circuit.
In order to be as small as possible, the sensor needed to be separated from the recorder unit. Sony developed a bespoke setup: a hybrid between a Sony FX6 and an FR7 remote camera, with a thin base unit that housed a recorder and an Ethernet jack, enabling the crew to set up a network around the race track and remotely control exposure as well as pan and focus (using a Preston motor). At the front end sat the “PanaPan” — a Panavision-designed miniature pan head that could even be mounted to the visor of a helmet.
Find out more about Miranda's approach to shooting F1 - and how Sony helped to make it happen: https://britishcinematographer.co.uk/claudio-miranda-asc-acc-f1-the-movie/
